The Fallacy of the Minimum Wage and CT Governor Dan Malloy

Transcript:

After reviewing a 2014 news conference concerning an increase in the minimum wage, I am completely convinced that Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy does not have the least bit understanding of economics.

"Today I am proud to announce one more piece of legislation that I will be submitting which is to increase the state minimum wage to $10.10 over the next three years"

That some people can think government is able to make our lives better by setting a minimum wage baffles me.  Forget the fact that everything government does is inefficient by nature, or that for government to help one person it must hurt another.

Let us just logically take a look at the idea of minimum wage.  Advocates of the minimum wage range from wanting a federally mandated $15/hour minimum wage to over $20/hour but regardless of the number requested I always have the same question; why stop there?  If you think the government could set a minimum and make everyone's life better, why only $20/hour?  Why not $50/hour? or $100/hour? or maybe the government can pass a law that mandates a $1000/hour minimum wage, so that way we can all be rich, live in mansions, and drive Lamborghini.

Obviously this is absurd, as there are not many businesses that will be able to pay the increased wages, and would be forced to either drastically raise prices, lay off employees, or close.  Well this concept applies to any increase in the required wage.  There are many small businesses that are struggling to stay open and pay their employees at the current required wage, and if it were to increase by just a dollar or two, the business would not be able to pay the extra hundreds or thousands a month and be forced to raise prices, lay off employees, or close.  Now that employee that you were trying to make have a better life, has no job.

As shown by the next clip, Governor Malloy at least somewhat understands this concept but shows further ignorance of economics by brushing the increased prices away as no big deal, and makes the absurd statement that most businesses that pay the minimum wage are forced to stay in an area and can't leave regardless of the increased labor cost.

Reporter:  "Governor, no business has ever passed an exorbitant tax or an increase, its passed onto the consumer [sic].  Don't you feel that you just increased the cost of living in the state?"
Governor Malloy: "Well I think to some extent that may be reflected in costs but if you look at the nature of the businesses that are largely paying the minimum wage, they are businesses that can't leave the state.  They're here, they're providing services and products to the people of the state of Connecticut."

This is such an absurd conclusion that I don't know where to begin to dispute it.  When mentioning businesses that can't leave, I am assuming Malloy is referring to minimum wage jobs like restaurants that are very location focused, that have built their business through satisfying the local population, and can't just get up and relocate.  While it is true that these businesses can't just get up and relocate to another state, there is nothing that prevents them from just shutting down.  If they can't afford to pay their employees, or lose customers due to the increased prices that are a result of the increased salary paid to their employees, then the businesses will just close down.  The first businesses to close will be the single small family owned restaurants as they do not have the resources that big chain restaurants have, to deal with costly government regulation.  A restaurant like McDonalds has the resources to invest in automated order taking machines as a substitute for the newly increased cost of having an actual human employee.  But even a restaurant like McDonalds isn't REQUIRED to stay in a city and lose money.  If government regulations become so taxing that even a big chain store can't make a profit, then they will eventually just close or leave as well.

The next thing Governor Malloy says is really ridiculous, in my opinion.  He essentially says that people want to pay their workers more but I guess are just not smart enough to pay their workers what they feel they deserve and that is why we need government to force them to pay their workers more through minimum wage laws:

 "...I think when you ask people of the state of Connecticut whether they believe that the people who wait on them, who care for them, who take care of their children, should receive a $10.10 salary , I think you are going to find overwhelmingly that the people of Connecticut do agree."

So, according to the Governor's logic, there are people in Connecticut who are paying someone the minimum wage to watch their children, who feel that the babysitter deserves more than the minimum wage, but just aren't paying the babysitter more because there isn't a law requiring them to do so?  Why wouldn't they just pay the babysitter more themselves?

This same concept applies to the other group that Dan Malloy mentioned, waiters.  If Connecticut residents truly feel that the people who wait on them at restaurants deserve more pay, there is nothing from stopping those people from leaving a bigger tip.  It is obvious that Governor Malloy, with his push for an increase in the minimum wage, is just appealing to the low income, low information voter that doesn't understand the impact of government wage laws.

To conclude, more laws and bigger government are not the solution to the countries economic problems, but in actuality the cause of them.  Instead of asking for a government mandated "livable wage", we should be asking why the current non-livable wage of $10/hour, would be an extremely great wage just fifty years ago.  $10 in 1966 would be the equivalent of about $74 today.  This devaluing of the dollar is caused by inflation, or more money being "printed" into circulation resulting in increased prices.  This crippling power that the Federal Government, working in conjunction with The Federal Reserve has, needs to be the main topic of any discussion involving government involvement in wages and prices.  Other than that there is not much Dan Malloy or any Connecticut politician can do to help the economy other than to get out of the way and let the free market operate.

Related analyses:

• Is United States Senator Chris Murphy The Answer To The European Terrorist Problem? - March 25, 2016 (link)
• Are We In A Depression? President Obama Says No; CT Governor Dan Malloy Says Yes. - March 16, 2016 (link)
• Peter Schiff Was Right - Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy Edition - March 9, 2016 (link)
• CT Governor Dan Malloy's New Message For 2016 - February 28, 2016 (link)

Peter Schiff Was Right - Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy Edition

As discussed in my most recent video, Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy is delivering a new message to the people of Connecticut about how there will be no recovery from the recession and we should not expect to have as much as previous generations.  Malloy says that he, along with "economists across the world" had predicted a normal recovery from the recession, but have now come to find that this is not, and will not be the case, as the Great Recession is looking more like the Great Depression.

"It's clear that the Great Recession had a long lasting impact on the American economy.  We had all hoped, economists across the country, across the world, had predicted that although it might be a little bit slower, it would be, in essence, a normal recovery from the Great Recession.  That's not true. The Great Recession is more like the Great Depression in its long term impact on the economy." - Dan Malloy on WNPR, 02/18/16

While it is true that the Governor had been telling everyone for years that the economy was recovering and improving from the recession, it should be noted that there were some economists who predicted this lack of growth, and were saying exactly what Dan Malloy is now saying.  One particular economist is Peter Schiff, who most famously predicted the 2007-2008 crash.

For example, when Dan Malloy in 2012 was saying that "things are coming back" and in 2014 saying "the economy is improving", Peter Schiff was saying, in 2012, "we've been in a depression since the end of 2007", and in 2013 saying "wait until you see how bad it's going to get during the Obama recession".

In my opinion, Dan Malloy's solutions to the economic problems, such as increasing the minimum wage, will only make things worse.  In future videos I will be further critiquing Dan Malloy's views on the minimum wage, and overall economic policy.  To be sure to catch the latest uploads, subscribe to our channel on YouTube or click 'like' on The Goodman Chronicle Facebook page.

Politicians in Connecticut Want To Save You From Loud Movies

The state's politicians slithered their way back into the state capitol building, in Hartford, last month, convening the regular legislative session for 2014.  Every working day, these politicians are proposing dozens of new laws, all with the potential of directly effecting our lives, and most of us will never hear about it, until we are required to obey the new regulation/law.  That is why I encourage everyone to go to cga.ct.gov, the official website of the Connecticut General Assembly, and take a look at the daily "list of bills", presented by the House and Senate.  You will come across all types of legislation, from the tyrannically frightening, to the ignorantly absurd.  While I view the vast majority of government action to be, at best, useless, and, at worst, extremely detrimental, I find that there are certain pieces of legislation, such as Raised Bill Number 287, "AN ACT CONCERNING THE MAXIMUM DECIBEL LEVEL AT MOVIE THEATRES", that really help show the idea of how absurd government really is.

The proposed bill states:

(a) No person holding a license under the provisions of section 29-117 of the general statutes shall exhibit or show any moving picture film or preview film that exceeds eighty-five decibels. The Commissioner of Administrative Services shall establish the procedure for checking maximum decibel levels to determine compliance with this section.

The information to this bill does not show exactly which member of the Public Safety and Security Committee actually presented this bill, but somewhere in Connecticut, there is a politician that thinks it is a good idea to use the force of the state to make movie theater owners comply with what he feels is a safe movie watching experience.

To understand the absurdity of this potential law, place yourself in the shoes of a movie theater owner.  As the owner, you want as many people as possible to come watch a movie at your place of business, be satisfied with the experience, and eventually return.  To ensure this happens, you do everything in your power to eliminate any aspect of the movie watching experience, that may be detrimental to the viewer, such as the sound level of the movies being too loud, or too low.  If your movie theater begins to develop a reputation for showing movies at a displeasing sound level, then people will stop going to your movie theater.  Therefore, the person who cares most about running a safe, enjoyable, business operation, is the business owner.  Now that we understand this, we must ask; why would a politician involve himself in this process?  The politician is either completely ignorant to how economics works, and truly thinks that problems are best solved by government force, or is corrupt at some level.

Political corruption, a willingness to be dishonest in return for money or personal gain, takes many forms.  Most often, a politician is forced to hide his insincerity, and present a reasonable sounding excuse for using the force of the state to increase the power of government, increase his own power, and/or take a person's money.

In this case of the movie theater decibels, the details are not given, but surely the state will create some sort-of "decibel-rating certification" process, that will, of course, require movie theater owners to pay a "state certified inspector" to verify that the sound level is safe in their theater.  It can be expected that the cost of obtaining this certificate will increase over time, forcing the owner to pass on this extra cost of running a movie theater, onto the customers, in the form of increased ticket prices.  The customers will notice, and may get upset at, the rising prices, but most people will never make the connection that it was their local politician that caused this increase in the price of their movie ticket.

A rising cost in the price of a movie ticket is only one problem of this type of government intervention.  With new laws, come more bureaucracy, and more government created positions to ensure the fulfillment of the new mandates.  As government grows, so do taxes, and government fees, causing many tax-payers to become angry, frustrated, and in want of government to become smaller.  Politicians then tell you how difficult it is to cut government expenses, because they don't want anyone to lose their job, or cut the budget of any "important programs".  The people are told that cutting government services would effect important societal functions, like schools (think of the children!), and road construction.  Of course never mentioned by the politicians, is the various, newly-created, programs, and positions, such as the "decibel-rating" bureaucracy, that appear to be minor in cost now, but will slowly grow, and become more expensive over time.

How does a politician come up with a law like this anyway?  Maybe he/she was sitting in a movie theater, when it got to loud, in their opinion, and they thought to themselves "there should be a law against this!".  That is possible, but much legislation gets proposed by influences other than the politician himself.  Let's take a look at a list of possible people who may want to see legislation like this:

• Concerned citizens
• Sound "experts"
• Big movie theater owners
• Tyrannical government